I: The crisis of the new order. American democracy in a revolutionary age ; The Republican interest and the self-created democracy ; The making of Jeffersonian democracy ; Jefferson's two presidencies ; Nationalism and the War of 1812
II: Democracy ascendant. The era of bad feelings ; Slavery, compromise, and democratic politics ; The politics of moral improvement ; The aristocracy and democracy of America ; The Jackson era: uneasy beginnings ; Radical democracies ; 1832: Jackson's crucial year ; Banks, abolitionists, and the equal rights democracy ; "The republic has degenerated into a democracy" ; The politics of hard times ; Whigs, Democrats, and democracy
III: Slavery and the crisis of American democracy. Whig debacle, Democratic confusion ; Antislavery, annexation, and the advent of young Hickory ; The bitter fruits of Manifest Destiny ; War, slavery, and the American 1848 ; Political truce, uneasy consequences ; The truce collapses ; A nightmare broods over society ; The faith that right makes might ; The Iliad of all our woes.